Lasting
by theGayestNerd
Summary: Everybody thought it was a happy ending, that Barry was free of the effects left by the speedforce. Nobody had expected the effects to be so lasting. Spoilers for 4x01 I guess?
1. the relapse

**i kinda wanted barry's craziness to last more than one episode so here's my self indulgent catering to that**

* * *

When Iris woke up, the bed was cold. And empty. Which didn't make sense.

Barry was back. Barry was free from the speedforce. So why was the bed cold?

She could feel her heartbeat pick up quickly like a car engine sputtering to life as she shot up in bed. Barry was alive. He had to be.

Iris twisted her body to notice the shadow on the floor. She crawled over the sheets and blankets, feeling a wave of relief fall over her.

Barry was safe, he had just fallen out of the bed. He was lying on the floor on his back.

She grinned, feeling her heartbeat slow down and ease.

Barry slumped over so that he was facing her while still remaining on the floor. When they made eye contact, his face split into a wide, dopey grin. She felt her heart flood with happiness.

Barry was here.

"The stars... aren't they pretty?" He asked, looking up at the ceiling.

Iris fell her heart sink into her stomach.

 _Not again._

"I can feel the blades of grass against my skin," he continued, smiling to himself as he ran his hands over the wooden floor. "Skin... thin... wind..."

Iris was speechless. She had thought this was over.

Iris wanted to speak to Barry, to help him realize what was going on but she knew she couldn't. She feared even talking to him at all after what happened last time she tried to reach him in this state.

She had just gotten him back and now she was losing him again. Shakily rising from bed, she grabbed her iPhone off the bedside table and braced herself before hitting Caitlin's number on her contact list.

"Hello?" Caitlin's voice chimed the phone, cracking at the bad reception.

Iris looked back at Barry, who had pushed himself upright and was now laughing about the spiders crawling up the wall. A wall that looked particularly spider-free.

"Caitlin, we have a problem."

It had taken ages to get Barry into the car, but Joe and Iris had managed it. Barry was now buckled up in the back seat with Iris as Joe sped towards Star Labs, definitely breaking some traffic laws as he did so.

Despite herself, Iris laughed. "Dad, I thought you were a police officer."

"I think this situation is appropriate for some bending of the rules." Joe snapped, not really sounding mad. Just stressed.

Barry was staring out the window, face shifting between looking overly happy to scared and then to sad and then happy again. Iris longed to reach out and gently touch his arm in a comforting gesture, but she knew she couldn't.

Joe seemed to read her mind. "Don't even think about it."

Iris sighed. "I wasn't."

Barry started naming things saw and didn't see as they passed. Iris saw the mailbox as he pointed it out but felt her heart clench when he said he saw a elementary school as they traveled down an empty road, not a building in sight.

Rhyming seemed to calm him down. Every time he came close to freaking out, he would name words that rhymed. It was kind of weird but Iris decided that she wanted to help Barry in some shape or form.

"Sign..." Barry muttered, mostly to himself as the car halted at a stop sign. "Line... mine.. wine..."

Iris felt herself chime in. "Dine. Mine. Whine."

Barry's smile seemed to grow and even though Iris didn't understand what was going on inside his head, she felt like maybe she could somehow form a connection. In the drivers seat, Joe tensed but did not stop her from attempting to continue.

Barry continued. "Shine... vine... shrine..."

Iris stuttered for a moment before coming up with something. "Uh.. airline... assign, confine?"

Iris felt her hands itch to reach out and just as she felt comfortable enough to perhaps touch Barry's arm he looked away and stared directly at his reflection in the car window, giggling as he did so.

"It's hard to believe I'm here," he said to his reflection. "I've always wanted to meet you face-to-face."

"Barry, there's nobody there." Iris snapped and Joe gave her a sharp glance from the drivers seat as they finally pulled up to Star Labs.

Barry didn't look away from his reflection, smiling. He put a hand against his heart, nodding at his own face in the window. "Still beating." He told himself.

Iris heard a knocking on the window and turned to look. Her father was tapping on the glass and waving. "Time to go."

Iris led Barry into Star Labs and into the main room, which took even longer than getting him in the car. Luckily, Caitlin and Cisco met them in the hallway.

"Hey buddy..." Cisco said gently, trying to distract his friend. Caitlin gave him a pained look as she quietly made her way a little further down the hallway.

"What're you up to?" Cisco offered, not really knowing how to strike up a conversation with somebody that was... whatever Barry was.

Barry barely looked at Cisco, his eyes drifting over his friend's head and locking onto the wall. "The stars are shining so brightly tonight... light... might... white.."

"Uh, yeah." Cisco said, not having the heart or energy to tell Barry it wasn't night time. Barry let out a cry of pain, grasping his head with both hands, stumbling a bit.

"Everything is so loud..." he whined, his body shaking slightly.

"I know, Barry. Everything's going to be fine, I promise." Iris said softly, setting a hand on his shoulder. Both Iris and Cisco knew that any second now Caitlin would be in the right position to get the job done.

And she was.

Barry felt a sharp prick on his neck before everything went black.

Barry woke up surrounded by blue tiles. He looked around and the place looked familiar. He couldn't quite put his finger on where he had seen it before though.

He was lying on his side and didn't have much motivation to get up until he noticed a white marker lying in the corner of the cell. Instantly his face split into a grin and he reached out to grab it.

"Marker... darker... barker..." he giggled to himself as his fingers curled around the utensil. He slowly pushed himself to his feet, albeit shakily and clumsily as he examined the empty walls of the cell. Everything looks so familiar.. like the stars did... he knew the stars so well... as they did him. He laughed quietly to himself as he started to draw on the walls, writing down everything and anything and nothing.

Symbol after symbol, Barry continued to mutter to himself about the stars because the stars were the only things that loved him. Weren't they?

A flash of memory split his mind in two and he whimpered as the pain spread through his skull. Dropping the marker, he quickly fell against the wall of the cell, holding his head.

"So I can... try to fix things between us, maybe even between Joe and Iris too." He said to Caitlin, face set with determination. But all it took was a blink and suddenly she was gone from the cell. And the memory was gone, and the pain along with it. He stared at the space on the floor between his feet for fifty seconds before lifting his head to start writing again.

"Writing... igniting... lighting..."

Everybody stood in the same room, but nobody spoke. Iris had phoned Wally about the situation and he had driven down to Star Labs too. But now that everybody was standing side by side trying to decide what to do, no one could even bring themselves to speak. Each expression showed a different kind of pain.

Without warning, Iris turned to Caitlin, glaring. "I thought he was okay now!"

Caitlin sputtered in shock for a moment, wringing her hands nervously. "We all thought that. After saving you, he showed absolutely no sign of ever returning to ... " there was a long pause of silence. There was still no term to describe what was happening to Barry. "... this. He seemed absolutely fine in every aspect. There's no way to explain this sudden relapse."

Iris scowled, crossing her arms. The anger was still deep set but she decided not to yell at Caitlin any longer. "So what do we do?" She asked, her voice softening.

Caitlin sighed. "I ran all the tests while he was asleep and it's the exact same results as last time. It looks like the best thing we can do is hope this is only a temporary relapse."

Wally spoke up after remaining silent for awhile. "What do we do until he... returns to normal?"

Cisco sighed, looking strained. "Be there for him, I guess. What else is there to do?"

Nobody said anything.


	2. the meltdown

**it's uhhhhhhhhh it's another chapter**

* * *

Wally and Joe had long since left, and now the only people left in Star Labs were Iris, Cisco and Caitlin. And Barry, of course. Iris had refused to leave and after a heated argument rose and fell, Caitlin caved and said Iris could stay the night.

"I guess we're all staying tonight." Cisco grumbled in a tone that was way too bitter for him. His eyes shifted over to the security feed of Barry, who had plastered almost all of the walls in his cell with white symbols. His expression softened. "Do we have enough cots for the three of us?" Caitlin nodded mutely, making sure not to make eye contact as she furiously typed into her computer. Many minutes passed, fill with silence. Iris sat on the chair next to Caitlin, watching the other woman type into the computer while Cisco typed into a different computer on the other side of the room.

Iris was no genius and after awhile at failing to understand what her two friends were even doing, she heard a piercing scream. Instinctively cringing at the loud noise, she stood up and covered her ears, back hunched. Cisco and Caitlin both shot up out of their seats as well and all heads turned to the security footage. All that could be seen in Barry's containment cell was a twisting and sparking flash of light which seemed to spin around in a circle in the small space. It was as if he was trying to get free but didn't know how.

The three friends all exchanged looks of shock for a split second.

"What's wrong with him? Why's he freaking out?" Cisco shouted, anxiety shining clear in his voice. Caitlin waved her hands about and stuttered as she answered, "I don't know!"

Iris began to run down the hallway, moving faster and faster as she did so. The panic began to set in and she picked up the pace despite the fact she felt her worry increasing with every step and it made her feel sick. When she reached the pipeline, Barry was still speeding around in circles, his shrieks incoherent and ear-shattering.

"Barry!" she yelled, trying to catch his attention, which was hard considering her fiance was spinning around at the speed of light so consistently she knew he would have a headache later.

Barry stopped, his body still vibrating so fast he was just a blur. His eyes shone a bright red, his expression impossible to guess.

"Barry, what's wrong?" Iris asked softly, and Barry's form sputtered into a solid. He didn't respond, however. He just looked around the cell wildly, eyes wide with what looked like confusion and shock. He spun around in circles, but solid this time. Not blurring, not speeding. It was just Barry, her Barry, stumbling around in circles for what looked like no reason.

"While you guys work on the goggles I will go to the CCPD as him and figure out what information they have about Zoom's previous sightings." Barry reassured to nobody in particular, shakily leaning against the wall for support. The memory left as quickly as it had came and he let out a cry of pain, clutching his head and falling to his knees. As Iris approached the cells quietly the screams only got louder and louder as when they made eye contact, Barry's eyes widened with fear, but it wasn't at Iris. It was as if there was something behind her, Iris turned to look but there was nothing there.

Whatever Barry had seen, it had shook him to his core and he began to speed in circles again, electricity sparking against the glass of his cell. Iris wanted so greatly to hold him in her arms and comfort him, console him, tell him everything was fine.

But she couldn't. And that hurt her more than losing him.

She stood motionlessly as Caitlin and Cisco walked past her, trying to figure out what to do and what was wrong. That was when Iris noticed the cold gun in Caitlin's hands. Her heart sank.

She touched Caitlin's arm and frowned. "You don't need to-"

"I have to." Caitlin responded coldly as Cisco opened the door to the cortex and Caitlin spun on her heel, giving Barry no time to speed out of his cell before she shot him with the cold gun, which let out an icy blast that stopped the fastest man alive in his tracks. Barry, now covered in ice and frost, fell over, unconscious and Cisco barely caught him before he hit the ground.

"Why do you think he had a meltdown?" Caitlin asked Cisco, who was struggling to keep Barry upright.

"I don't know."

Iris walked into the cell and looked at all the walls, and then down at the floor. They were all covered in those nonsense symbols covered almost every square inch of the cell, leaving no room for any more.

She ran her fingers over the symbols, feeling hatred rise in her chest for them. They were a constant reminder of how far gone Barry was. She shook her head a little, trying to shake that thought of her head. _No. He's not gone, this is just a relapse, right? He'll go back to being normal... somehow..._

"Geez, there's so many symbols in here there's no room left to write." Cisco said, and that's when it dawned on Iris. And must've dawned on Caitlin at the exact same time because they both gasped in realization. Iris looked to the ground, spotting the marker Barry had been using. Or what was left of it anyways, considering it had been broken in half. She gently picked up the pieces, the marker now demolished. Had Barry really been that distraught over not being able to draw those symbols anymore? Why?

"Maybe that's why he freaked out!" Caitlin theorized. "Maybe writing all these symbols on the walls is like a coping mechanism? And when he ran out room to write, he went all... all..."

"Crazy. Well, crazier." Cisco finished, trying to bring Barry into a different cell. He gently set down his friend in the second cell, using his hand to cushion Barry's head as he set him down, as if he was afraid of damaging Barry's mind more than it already had been.

Minutes passed, and then hours and as the sun went down Cisco and Caitlin went back up, quietly telling Iris she could come back up whenever she wanted. But Iris stayed put outside Barry's cell, peering at the man through the glass. It felt like she was watching him be in a coma all over again. This time, she knew he would wake up.

But there was no telling what kind of person he'd be when he woke up.

Before Cisco went to sleep, he walked down to the pipeline one final time to get Iris, only to find his friend asleep, leaning against the glass of Barry's cell. He bit his lip, wondering if he should move Iris upstairs. But she looked so peaceful... also, he wasn't sure if Iris West would want him moving her around while she slept.

He made his way back upstairs, smiling to himself. Yeah, things were messed up. But he vowed to himself that Team Flash would always be there for Barry, no matter what state he was in.


End file.
